Rome to switch off lights of Colosseum at midnight for Gilad

On Thursday evening the lights of the Colosseum in Rome will be turned off in solidarity with kidnapped soldier Gilad Schalit. Noam Schalit, Gilad's father, will be in attendance along with the Roman citizens and the representatives of local and national Italian institutions.

According to organizers, the gathering is meant to send a message to the world: "Free Gilad now". Speeches will be given by Noam Schalit and the mayor of Rome, and pictures of Gilad will be screened. At 11 pm (midnight in Israel) the lights of the Colosseum will be turned off.

"We immediately launched the campaign for Shalit because we feel the burden of anxiety”, the President of the Jewish Community of Rome, Riccardo Pacifici, says.

Last summer Rome's Mayor Gianni Alemanno bestowed honorary citizenship on Gilad. The City of Rome has strongly supported the initiative in the Colosseum. Other cities in Italy have joined, and some of the municipalities will turn off the lights at some of their monuments.

"We want to sensitize public opinion and strongly assert our values, which belong to civil society as a whole, first of all the value of freedom. This event is first and foremost an expression of our strong support of the State of Israel,” Pacifici said.

The gathering storm in the Middle East is gaining momentum. War clouds are on the horizon and, as with conditions prior to World War I, all it takes for explosive action to commence is a trigger.

Turkey’s provocative flotilla—often described in Orwellian terms as a humanitarian mission—has set in motion a flurry of diplomatic activity, but if the Iranians send escort vessels for the next round of Turkish ships, it could present a casus belli.

It is also instructive that Syria is playing a dangerous game with both missile deployment and rearming Hezbollah. According to most public accounts, Hezbollah is sitting on 40,000 long-, medium- and short-range missiles and Syrian territory has served as a conduit for military material from Iran since the end of the 2006 Lebanon War.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Maze Cartoon - Jewish monkey reading a newspaper with the headlines, "Hizbullah Claims Israel's Gas Belongs to them" says, "In World War 2, the anti-semites put us into gas chambers. Now they want to chamber our gas" Created by Yonatan Frimer

Hizbullah claims that that the natural gas fields recently discovered in the Mediterranean, belong to Lebanon and warned Israel against extracting gas from them. Iranian English language paper "Tehran Times" quotes Hezbollah's executive council chief Hashem Safieddine as saying that it would not allow Israel to loot Lebanese gas resources.

Earlier this week, Lebanese parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri told "AFP", “Israel is racing to make the case a fait accompli and was quick to present itself as an oil emirate, ignoring the fact that, according to the maps, the deposit extends into Lebanese waters. Lebanon must take immediate action to defend its financial, political, economic and sovereign rights."

More on this maze's topic:

The United Nations Security Council approved a new round of sanctions against Iran last week for its refusal to curb the country's nuclear program, which the U.S. and its allies suspect is aimed at producing weapons. Iran denies that.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran favors a dialogue with the West, but will announce its conditions soon. He said the carrot-and-stick approach doesn't work and Iran will not make "one iota of concessions" to the West.

"You showed bad temper, reneged on your promise and again resorted to devilish manners," he said of the powers that imposed sanctions. "We set conditions (for talks) so that, God willing, you'll be punished a bit and sit at the negotiating table like a polite child," he told a crowd during a visit to the central Iranian town of Shahr-e-Kord. His speech was broadcast live on state TV.

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Smugglers in Egypt and Gaza worry their trade will be adversely affected by returning Palestinians lugging goods bought for cheaper prices in Egypt. They know a total termination of the blockade will spell the end of their industry.

"If the border opened, there won't be any tunnels," Abu Al-Amir, a tunnel worker in Gaza, said in a telephone interview with AOL News. "If the tunnels end, no one will work."

Al-Amir said nervous conversations about what will happen if the border stays open have rippled through the smuggling community in Gaza. Although his work has not been affected, Al-Amir said, "There are people who are afraid."

Right now, it's business as usual for many of Gaza's tunnels that ferry construction materials, something neither of the borders is allowing through.

Monday, June 14, 2010

When I was in high school, I had to drive a long distance on a freeway to get to school. After arriving, I often wondered how I got there. I didn't remember the drive or even thinking about driving.

This feeling is a common (and, yes, somewhat scary) experience that a group of neuroscientists think they can better explain. In an experiment with rats, researchers at MIT identified two distinct neural circuits in the brain that show distinct changes when the rats were learning to navigate a maze and, later, after they mastered the task.

The rats were placed in a maze that had chocolate sprinkles at the end. The activity in specific parts of their brains was analyzed as they learned the maze, which included a T-juncture where they had to stop and choose to turn right or left. The rats performed the maze repeatedly until they had learned it.

The study showed that one specific neural circuit became stronger with practice. A second neural circuit showed high activity occurring at times when the rats had to make a decision in the maze. But as they learned the maze, activity in this circuit declined. The task had become habitual.

So, arriving at school in one piece wasn't just a matter of luck. "It is good to know that we can train our brains to develop good habits and avoid bad ones," the lead author of the study, Ann Graybiel, said in a news release.

Understanding how specific regions of the brain change through learning could help in developing new treatments for brain-based diseases. The study was published Thursday in the journal Neuron.

Helen Thomas's controversial voice

I am appalled that Helen Thomas's comments on Israel prevent her from speaking at Walt Whitman High School's commencement ["Helen Thomas bows out of speech," Metro, June 7]. I am also disgusted that Ari Fleischer and Lanny Davis conducted a campaign to punish Ms. Thomas, no doubt as retribution for her outspoken questions when they served in earlier administrations. Freedom of speech, however, is lost to their petty maneuvering.

Most of us would not agree with Ms. Thomas's unfortunate and seemingly uninformed comments about where Jews might live in peace. But she has the right to say what she thinks, and listeners can decide whether she is foolish, biased and out of touch. Had she spoken at Whitman, perhaps she would have retracted, perhaps she would have lamented further . . . or maybe not.

More on this maze's topic:

Turkey's Erdogan bears responsibility in flotilla fiasco

WESTERN GOVERNMENTS have been right to be concerned about Israel's poor judgment and botched execution in the raid against the Free Gaza flotilla. But they ought to be at least as worried about the Turkish government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which since Monday has shown a sympathy toward Islamic militants and a penchant for grotesque demagoguery toward Israel that ought to be unacceptable for a member of NATO.

On the opposite page today, Turkey's ambassador to the United States makes the argument that Israel had no cause to clash with the "European lawmakers, journalists, business leaders and an 86-year-old Holocaust survivor" who were aboard the flotilla. But there...(read full article)

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

For Immediate Release -

Near Ashdod, Israel, June 7, 2010 -

The recent headlines have been focusing on the Israeli "Flotilla raid", specifically the raid on the Mavi Marmara. This week, we give you 5 (five) maze cartoons centered around this topic. You may use these for editorial purposes and in any other way you'd like, no charge.

Topics of this week's maze cartoons:* Erdogan's comparison of flotilla raid to 9/11; How does it stack up against the Armenian Genocide?* The things the flotilla has left in its' wake.* Israel's public relation teams: 3 stooges and a barrel of monkeys.* Which form of Islam is true?* Who you calling chicken? Turkey AKP surrounded by terrorist chickens.

About Yonatan Frimer:Yonatan Frimer is a syndicated editorial cartoonist. Aside from being laugh-out-loud funny,or at least chuckle-worthy, each of Frimer's cartoons is also a maze. In anticipation of his soon-to-be-announced book, he is releasing 6-months worth of editorial cartoons on current events at no charge to newspapers and news outlets around the world.

Yonatan Frimer is also available as a freelance maze artist & cartoonist, able to create custom mazes for your newspaper at only $250 per maze. He can make custom mazes for your puzzles section, portraits of your staff, poke fun at local issues, or anything else you might want.

Cartoon maze of how the Tea Party started. By Yonatan Frimer

Cartoon maze editorial of a bunch of sheep in a field. One sheep stands up and exclaims, "I will no longer be a follower!" The rest of the flock yells, "Me too!" and the group in the front explaim "If this catches on, we got to get that fox on board."

Good year to be a Cameron, cartoon maze:Cartoon maze editorial both David Cameron, the new prime minister of England and of James Cameron, who produced and directed Avatar, a movie that has broken many records for generating the most revenue. 2010 sure is a good year if your last name is Cameron.

Editorial maze cartoon of a conversation between King Fahd and Jean-Marie Lustiger on having a grand mosque built in Paris. Lustiger replies, "Sure, just as soon as I can build a grand cathedral in Mecca."

Can't solve the maze? Click here for the maze solutionEditorial Cartoon Maze of Bashar Assad, President Ahmadinejad, and Hassan Nasrallah on the road to dictatorship. A donkey marked UN poops out resolution as the Iranian president remarks "Just don't step in any of it till we get there."